In fact just check out most of the stuff on the leangains site, I won't cover intermittent fasting though.

Setting a goal:

What do you want? Do you want to get beefy? Strong? Thin? Lean? Toned? Fuck toned and toning, drop those words from your vocab, I had to find them again just to tell you what to drop. Most of what happens when it comes to goals and size will depend on what and how you eat, a person could be doing the same schedule as everyoneelse and find themselves becoming more lean or bigger than all the others doing the same thing.

I will flesh this out during the weekend, until then V

How Calories Work

I'm gonna go slightly scientific so I don't have to repeat myself or explain a whole lot more later, I'll just refer here instead.

Calories are energy, what we call calories are actually kilo-calories (kilo = 1000), on the products you'll find it often says "kcal" - now you know! We waste energy every day by simply being alive, staying warm and moving around so we need an APPROPRIATE amount of energy from food to make sure we don't turn crackwhore skinny.

I'm giving you a daily calorie expenditure (BMR) of 1600 kcal, now I tell you to workout and take the stairs instead of the elevator so your total goes to around 2000 kcal.I won't be taking into account the energy needed for the breakdown of food, which for protein can go up to 20-30% of the calories IN the food. We'll just consider that a bonus-burner for now.

So you're now at 2000 kcal. To stay exactly the way you are while gaining strength and (probably) zig-zagging a bit with muscle gain and fat loss you want to eat just about the same - 2000 kcal.Let's do some math. Math is fun. 2000 - 2000 = 0 Eat 2300 a day = 2300 - 2000 = 300 kcal above per day - +2100 kcal gain per weekEat 1800 a day = 1800 - 2000 = -200 kcal below per day - 1400 kcal loss per week (one pound of fat is accepted to be 3500 kcal)

If you don't give a shit about body composition (but baby, you should) this would be eat. Pure math and physics, eat less become less.

The labels on food will probably have "Per 100 gram" on them, so the measurement becomes a percentage basically.The problem with this is that it doesn't matter if something has "1,5% fat only!" and here's why, but first I'll give you the numbers for yourself to calculate anything you want.

So let's have a look at milk, I don't even have to look at that shit I'm gonna drop it like it's hot cause i know it by heart:

Milk 1,5% fat, Per 100g:

Total kcal: 45 kcalFat: 1,5 GRAMProtein 3,5 GRAMCarbs 4,9 GRAM

So somebody might look at that, say "hey, 1,5% fat and 45 kcals? that's 45 x 0,015 = 0.675 kcals fat? not even ONE KCAL FAT!"That's not how it works though.

It's 1,5 grams of fat giving you 1,5 x 9 = 13,5 kcal fat PER 45 KCAL.

13,5 / 45 = 0.3

If you didn't follow me here's what that means: There's 30% FAT of the total energy in 1,5% fat milk. now imagine how much fat and carbs there is, percentage wise, in everything else.

Don't be too afraid though because percentages have to add up to 100%, this is just an example of the food industry makes it harder than it has to be to know what's what.If I had a glass of water and poured some olive oil into it that'd turn into 99% fat of the kcals IN THAT GLASS, not 99% of the weight.

make the distinction, use the numbers i gave you up there to calculate what's in some of your favorite snacks and maybe you'll realize what you're eating is godsend or absolute shit for your body.

The same calculation for carbs and protein for milk also gives that (3,5 x 4 = 14 | 14/45 =) 31% protein and 43,5% carbs! Which is really good, balanced nutritional values for someone who works out.

What to eat

The easiest thing I can give you is to tell you this: Always base your meals around PROTEIN and FAT OR PROTEIN and CARBS. NEVER around carbs and fat.You really should learn to know what contains protein, fat and carbs to make your life easy. It's not calorie-counting, it's knowing what you stuff yourself with.

I'll tell you later why, if you want to know now scroll down to "why". Now's the what.

FishChickenMeatEggsMilkCottage cheeseCheeseVegetables

Wanna add weight? add more carbs, such as:

RicePotatoesMilkMilk

If you feel the need to count I'd say to start from a 30/30/40 where protein is 40% of your calorie intake and it's hard to go wrong. Trade fat for carbs or vice versa so you end up with either version of 20/40/40 or 40/20/40.There are other points of views, this is what I feel safe in saying to people I have never met in real life or talked extensively to.

WHYWhy protein with everything and never fat and carbs together?Because insuline. Dumbed down version incoming.

When your sugar is spiked by (mainly) the carbs in your food your insuline comes on to lower it. If that doesn't happen you have diabetes (type-2 iirc).When your insuline gets spiked you store what's coming in (with the basic intent of storing the carbs to lower the sugar in your blood).

Insuline paired with carbs = good - lowers blood sugar and you store those carbs to use them for another gym sessionInsuline paired with protein = good - stores protein and helps you recover from that last gym sessionInsuline paired with fat = bad - stores fat. fatty fat fat.

Therefore protein and fat doesn't spike insuline = good ideaProtein and carbs spike insuline but that's basically what we want (especielly after a gym session = good ideaFat and carbs spike insuline and store fat = generally bad idea. you don't even want to bulk this way.

WHAT ABOUT ALCOHOL?

Alcohol does for everything you eat the same as insuline does for fat. Alcohol is a poison and is treated as such, and meanwhile your body is taking care of that poison you put in yourself your body is basically storing everything you eat, just as insuline did with fat. so everything is a bad idea paired with alcohol.

Protein is slightly harder to store as fat so if you want to eat anything while drinking it's protein.Protein can turn be used, turned into energy (carbs basically) or be stored as fatCarbs can be used as energy or be stored as fatFat can be used as energy or stored as.. fat.

Therefore protein has to go: protein>carbs>fat before being stored and takes a slight amount of energy to do so before it is stored, as well as having the initially lower calorie density compared to fat.

I*M BROKEEEEEEN!!!!

Well pantera in that case you should go have that shit checked out if it has to do with any of the movements I'm going to go through, and since I'll be having you rotate, flex and extend basically every joint you have in some way - you want to go check that out. In most cases you'd want to start by going to someone who knows proper physiotherapy because going to a chiropractor will result in that person wanting to solve all your problems by snap, crackle and pop - and that MAY be what you need but you'd be better off finding out if that IS what you need beforehand.

The movements

I want to start off by saying that your body has several movements that I'll be dumbing down quite a bit so as to not make this something you have to read while looking at an anatomy chart.Your body can push and your body can pull. If your arms PUSH that means you'll be engaging the triceps muscles (the back of your arms) to extend your arm/s. When your arms PULL you'll be engaging the biceps muscles (The CIA got you pushing too many pencils?) to flex your arm/s.

Same thing with your legs - you can translate how your arms work to how your legs work. Think of the shoulders as the butt, the biceps as the hamstrings (back of leg) and triceps as quadriceps (front of leg).A pulling motion with your legs won't be your toes gripping something and you pulling with your hamstrings, but I'll call a motion where the hamstring does the work a pulling motion whereas pressing with your legs (extension) activates your quads (front leg).

Then you have your shoulders. If standing straight up with your arms outwards to your sides while keeping them straight you can do 3 basic movements with your shoulders. The shoulders are what's above your arms, not what's around your neck. You can lift your arms straight up in front of you (zombie stance) - that is the front of your shoulder. You can lift your arms outward to your sides (bird stance), that's the middle part of the shoulder. You can lift your arms backwards (running japanese ninja style), that's the back of your shoulders.

The hip does somewhat the same for the legs as the shoulders do for the arms.

Your BACK will be assisting you in PULLING motions in synergy with your biceps, your back has the job of pulling your shoulderblades together, up AND down depending on what muscle/part of muscle activates - it's also responsible for keeping you upright and pulling your elbows DOWN.

Your TITS will be assisting you in PRESSING motions in FRONT of you (horizontal motion) with assistance of the TRICEPS, further down you have that gut - that gut assists in stabilizing you in your movements and allows you to contract to achieve a crunching motion.

The Angles

Now you know in a very basic sense how your body works I'm going to tell you what your body should be able to do (and what you're going to do when you work out).

You want to:

Press UPWARDS with your upper bodyPress FORWARDS with your upper bodyPull FROM ABOVE with your upper bodyPull FROM IN FRONT OF YOU with your upper bodyPress DOWN with your feetPress DOWN while activating the posterior chain of your body, hence me calling this a pulling motion. the deadlift.

Now the angles we don't have in here would be focusing on a single joint, such as raising your arms straight up in front of you (zombie stance), which is why I won't cover them. We want movements that incorporate several joints.

Those are 6 exercises You'll have to do. Unless you need rehab or you've outgrown them (you don't outgrow them) these are BASICALLY IT.

The Exercises

I will mostly be talking about barbells, most of the movements can be done with dumbbells as well. I will do so because I will be citing Mark Rippetoe a lot who has written a great book (Starting Strength) about some of these exercises where he talks about nothing but barbells. I'll be putting these in the same order as above:

A vertical pushing motion preferrably done standing up to give you core strength while you're at it.

Barbell (Mark Rippetoe)

Dumbbell (Scottfagherman)

I'm not a huge fan of Scott, mostly because he ain't wearing a t-shirt, but since he's saying just about what I would say except i'd keep my clothes on i'm gonna let it slide and you're gonna have to live with it. I'm sorry.The Dumbbell motion is far easier because of the bar traveling along a path that means it WILL hit your chin if you want to go straight up. If you don't go straight up you put yourself in a position unable to lift the weight with as much force, so there's some technique to it, along with the form of just standing correctly with the barbell and the grip.

If you do decide on the barbell please read the chapter in the starting strength book.

BENCH PRESS/PUSHUP

Bench press by Mr Tate

Thank you Dave Tate, I will be talking about the bench press with a barbell no more.

DB bench: Yes it's him again. scothtemrnafitness.

now the PUSHUP is exciting. See, what the bench press forces you to do with a barbell is to pinch your shoulder blades together (keeping your back tight) as well as pinning you against a flat surface.The pushup is a movement that should be done with SCAPULAR PROTRACTION at the end of it, the end of it being at the top of the movement and scapular protraction meaning you should push your shoulders and arms forward even though your arms are extended (NOT pinching your shoulder blades together). This makes for a stable shoulder girdle if done correctly that will translate to strength and movement in everything else you decide to take upon yourself.It's also a great core and ab exercise because of forcing you to hold a plank while moving up and down. here we go:

At the top of the motion I implore you to push your shoulder blades outwards moreso than he does to emphasize the serratus anterior movement. google it if you want.

Like this: Left = WRONGRight = right.

tbc i don't wanna lose this.

Last edited by vidret on Tue May 14, 2013 4:42 pm, edited 6 times in total.

This is where, if you're strong enough, you pull YOURSELF up. The grip dictates the name of the movement.

A pronated grip is a pullup, as such:

I didn't watch all of that but what he said was correct.

A supinated grip is a chinup and will incorporate more of the biceps in the movement (the pullup does not REMOVE the biceps entirely) - thus the chinup is considered to be easier:

On part 2 of the video of the pullup above the skinny dude does a hammer-grip of sorts, so imagine he'd had a bar there and took a supinated grip all the way - that'd be a chinup.

This pic needs to be here:

The PULLDOWN is when you can't lift yourself and therefore pull a bar/grip of sorts down TO you:

The motion works the same way so the above video still stands. What you do is you hit your local gym and you stick your knees under the pillow (that's usually how they're built) and after that it's the same thing.What you want to do is work that weight up to your own bodyweight so that you can start doing chinups and pullups.

THE ROW

This is the reverse movement of the bench press, just as the pullup is the reverse of the shoulder press.

This is what I found on the toobs that looked legit, god that voice/music though, BARBELL ROW:

I'm calling this a horizontal pulling motion, but he's lifting it straight up? that's because he's bending over it so it's horizontal to his body as if he were to change the laws of gravity and do it while standing up.deal with it.

This is probably what you'll do unless you're a barbell enthusiast:

THE SQUUUAAAAT

First off i want you to tell all your lady friends to drop the fucking cardio and start doing heavy squats. Now that we've saved the world from cellulite armageddon it's time to move away from the regular douchebag gymgoer and GO T-REX MOAD.

First There's the placement of the bar. Mark Rippetoe of Starting Strength leans towards using a low bar squat whereas most people when they talk about a "regular" squat mean a high-bar, including me.

Therefore if you're following Mr Rippetoes instructions you'll probably be doing a low-bar squat - in my opinion if you do the deadlift you need the angle you achieve with the high-bar, maybe even front squats (but I won't cover that here).

Follow the parts, I won't post them in full here.

THE DEEAAAADLIIIIFT

This is where you become a man. an animal. manimal. they'll find your fossiles 10,000 years from now and imagine the beasts that lived, "how come this one is so much bigger and more awesome than the rest?" they'll ask themselves.

master of the art:

From there you can click on anything that's talked about by Mark Rippetoe and has to do with the deadlift, I am certain it will be just right.

Also found this, I watched this a while ago, not all the parts but feel free if you're so inclined.

posting for save. hitting the gym, i'll go through it some more and add the part about calories as well as go through rep ranges and how to set up the schedule later.

Last edited by vidret on Fri May 03, 2013 9:09 am, edited 3 times in total.

It's like multiplication. You do reps (repetitions) within a set. If I were to do 4x20 (4 sets, 20 reps) pushups right now I'd do 20 pushups, rest, do 20, rest, do 20, rest and do the last 20. 4 x 20.Reps and sets both depend on other factors such as goal, schedule etc

Rest in between sets also depends upon goal, if pure strength is what you're trying to achieve then on the lift that you're trying to improve rest can be around 2 minutes. If you're working on endurance you might want to stay around 30 seconds. In general I'd say 30 seconds - 1 minute. Myself I will wait until I feel ready to perform again unless I'm doing something specific, that's not something I would advise at first since in the beginning one might tire easily and would have to wait a day or two until one is ready to perform again you'll just have to push it.

REP RANGES

Different rep ranges within a set do different things, although not as varied as people believe. Become stronger and eat more than you burn off and you'll become bigger. Eat less and you'll become smaller. Rep ranges can't change that.

What rep ranges can do is customize the program a bit more towards what you're doing. I would say the general rep total rep range of a gym workout within a set lies between 1 rep and 15 reps. Let's have a look.

1 rep = This is for personal records, competing, pure strength. You will not go here at first because A) you can't B) there's no need2-3 reps = This is for building that pure strength that one would need to build a solid 1REPMAX4-6 = Strength - a good rep range if you know what you're doing technique wise7-12 = Strength and hypertrophy (muscle building) - you can "pump it" a bit more on these rep ranges since you're not getting so close to dying as you are on things lower than 5.12-15 = You'll surely build muscle and strength here but you're going into endurance territory up here. This is what you'll start with to get a good technique down on your lifts.

Now what I'm assuming after giving you these numbers is that if you did 1 REP it's not that you did it with the same weight as you *could* do 15 reps, it means that that ONE rep was the maximum you could lift, you couldn't have lifted that weight twice.

That is also why I'm saying that you should be in the 12-15 rep range at first to get technique down - essentially I want you to adjust the weight down so that you can do 12-15 reps and keep a good technique.

What's the difference you say? Well let's say I give you a bar with weights on it and have you deadlift it, 60kg total. You lift it 7 times. The first 4 look okay, the last 3 aren't a form I'd like to have you practice.Lower that weight to 40 kg and you do 13 reps, first 10-11 look good and the 12-13 look okay/last one looks bad, maybe. I want your technique solid before putting the weight on and damaging yourself, therefore you'll have to work it to make sure it sticks with a lighter weight (that's still working out, you'll feel it I promise - but tech comes first).

There's also room for failure. If I were to try to do 50 pushups and at 48 I feel my shoulder giving me crap about it I can just quit. If i were to bench 250 lbs 3 times I might do the first rep okay and then my shoulder gives out on the second one. See what I'm saying?

THE SCHEDULE

This is it. Now first you have to decide how many times a week you're going to do this. I will make several plans of action. I will lay out several "splits". A split is when you have a workout over a week that's split into several parts, so say I were to do legs on monday, chest and shoulders wednesday and then back and everything else i forgot on friday - that'd be a 3-split.

I will demand an absolute minimum of twice a week, so this is the simplest one - if you have more days a week to perform this you'll only alternate and add days, as such:

PART A:

Deadlift 4 setsShoulder press 4 setsPullups/Chinups/Pulldowns 4 sets

PART B:

Squat 4 setsBench press 3 setsPush-ups 3 setsRows 4 sets

Yes. I didn't give you as much bench press and instead added pushups. A common shoulder problem stems from the fact that you can push forward very well but not above your head. As I laid out earlier as well, the bench press suppresses the movement of your scapula and so I would advise to train it through the push-up. The bench press isn't the be-all-end-all for the mega-body, nothing is except for a variation that allows you to continue to function properly.

2 DAYS A WEEK (working man)A x x B x x x

The x's are the days that you're not going into the gym craving war. keep 2 x's in between every workout, no reason to do them so tightly together when you've got so much resting on your hands.

3 DAYS A WEEK

A x B x A xx

Same principle as above. This could be mon/wed/fri or tues/thurs/sat etc

4 DAYS A WEEK

A B x A B x x

This gives you the weekend off and a resting day on wednesday if you start the "A" on monday. There's no way around it here, you'll have 3 rest days and you shouldn't do the workouts in "ABA" style on following days.

ROLLING ALTERNATE

A x B x A x B x A etc etc

this might fuck it up for people with families and times to keep, otherwise it's a good idea. Since a week is 7 days your schedule will roll over onto every day there is. Get 2 rest days in if you feel worn out.This might work better for a starter-up:

That'll give you plenty of rest and you'll hit the gym a minimum of 2 times a week, a maximum of 3 times whereas the above schedule will have you hitting the gym a max of 4 times a week, minimum 3 times.

WAYS OF ADVANCING

I always tell my clients there are 3 ways to advance with a lift. I might be wrong, but if I get these three things through I've done a job I can be proud of.

Technique, weights and reps.

PriorityTechnique - you come to the gym and squat 100 kg's and your knees bend inward slightly, your back turns into a cheez doodle and you forget to breathe.

The next week you come back, your knees move outwards pointing towards your toes, your back stays up straight along with the back-angle and you remember to breathe (correctly).The weight is the same, the reps are the same. This is an improvement.

Weight - Perfect form, 10 reps, 100 kg squat. You come back next week and do the same thing, perfect form, 10 reps but the weight on the bar is 102,5 kg. This is an improvement.

Reps - Perfect form, 10 reps, 100 kg squat. You come back and do the same thing, perfect form, 100 kg squat and pump out 11 reps. This is also an improvement.

I say "perfect form" when talking about the improvement on the reps and weights because in a perfect world you'll have perfect form before moving on to increasing weights/trying to increase reps.

Acquire one more rep per week for a lift and you'll have over 52 reps at that lift at the end of the year - that's good no matter what.Acquire a 2,5 kg increase per week for a lift and you'll lift over 130 kg more than when you started - that's good no matter whatAcquire perfect technique - this is the best no matter what. it's almost what's best in life. almost.

crushing your enemies, seeing them driven before you and hearing the lamentation of their women > perfect technique.

so there is a point where i will allow technique to drift if it does mean crushing your enemies, and in that case we're probably talking about competition where most anything goes as long as you make the lift.this is not what you're currently doing or trying to do, so don't do it.

Ever run out of gas (not that gas) or had your car break down on you because of whatever? Then you've probably pushed it a couple of meters/inches/feet/stones/log-lengths (whatever system you use).Do you recall the way you were breathing? I'm going to go ahead and tell you how it went down. You put your shoulder on the inside of the car, took your stance and then you took a breath, a big nice gulp of air - you then HELD it and pushed the car with your feet moving the power accumulated over to your hands/shoulders and onto the car.

There are talks about blood pressure and whatnot with this (natural, built-in) technique of breahting and I really should have a disclaimer saying I don't take responsibility but let's face it we're on a pedal forum - I'm not taking responsibility if you try to squat 150 kg's after reading what I've written and you're 70 yrs old with a heart condition. If you manage to do it I'll take all the cred though.

Same as for the car goes in strength training. That big gulp of air fills your stomach and you can tighten your core against it, so to speak. I will now give an example.Ever have someone hit you and you were prepared/preparing/trying to prepare for it? What did you do? Did you breath out until you felt weak and all spaghetti and then take it like a man? no you didn't that shit hurts.

Or did you fill your belly with air, tighten those abDOMINATIONals to the density of a hardened metal alloy and then have the opponent/friend crush his knuckles onto your core of steel? Yes, almost probable. something like it at least.

Now, ever seen a gymgoer use a big belt while doing a lift? Filling your stomach with air and flexing your core muscles is the same principle. The air gives you the ability to do this, we're talking pressure here, like in space.If a submarine's on the bottom of the ocean and the air goes out, what happens? it turns into a piece of scrap metal.

Now let's apply it. You're standing up in the squat, bar is placed properly on your back/shoulders, stance is good. You take that nice gulp of air, you hold it, you move down, you come back up and you breathe out during the upward part or at the top. Try it and see for yourself. Now try it and see what happens if you were to breathe out on the way down. Kind of hard to get back up again (with a weight, at least). Bench press? same thing. breathe at the top, bar comes down, bar comes up, breathe out.

This is where it gets tricky if you aren't into it. What about a row or a pullup/down? It's just the reverse because when you breathe OUT you're doing the concentric (for simplicity i'll call it "active) part of the motion. As you're moving upwards in the squat that's the concentric/active part of the motion, the downwards movement is the passive/eccentric part. So for the row or the pulldown you'd breathe OUT when you pull the weight TO YOU (active/concentric part), or a pullup where you'll breathe out at the top of the movement and then breathe in and start over on your way down.

I've found that a lot of people have problems doing this properly with shoulder presses (especially with a barbell) so I'll go over that as well. Since the barbell starts it's movement from the upper part of your chest and the active part is pushing it up above your head that's the ACTIVE part. When you come back down that's the passive part (don't quote me as calling the eccentric par the passive part, it's simply for your understanding). NOW - where would you stop to rest for half a second or take a new breath in this movement?

Think for a second.

Thought about it? Good.

You're probably wrong. Maybe. Did you think that you were to "rest" at the starting position, just like the squat and the bench press? In that case you're wrong.

The squat and the bench press doesn't rest in the starting position because it's the starting position, they rest at that position because it's before the passive/eccentric movement begins. Resting at the starting position of the shoulder press would be like coming down with the bar on the bench press and taking a gulp of air when it's on your chest, or sitting with your ass on the grass in the squat trying to breathe before moving back up.What you WANT to do is to start off by taking a breath, moving the bar up above your head and FROM THERE ON breathe at the top. You come down and immediately move back up, not stopping at the bottom. if you have to "rest" you do it at the top before the start of the next rep. This will add a couple of reps to your shoulderpress for sure.

MOBILITY AND STRETCHING (posture problems, too)

it has to be done, i fucking hate it but it has to be done. i will show how much i dislike having to do this by avoiding to use big letters.

I gotta use big letters. It's muscle memory, I'm sorry.

I would bet all the money, items and food that I own and love that you do not have a 100% correct mobility/posture/relative symmetrical strength and length of muscles in your body.First off, there's no such thing as stretching to become toned or smaller, like most chicks seem to think and some guys too, making the chicks stretch LOADS but not do strength training and the guys becoming stiff as fridges because they don't wanna be small. Most bodybuilders can do the split so the argument is invalid.

A properly stretched body only means it functions correctly, or should I say optimally. Try standing up straight and raising your hands above your head with the fingers pointing towards the skies, first without looking at yourself from the side in a mirror and then by using a mirror. Was your version, that felt correct, the same as the one where you looked in a mirror?

We live our lives with our hands and arms down to our sides or in front of of, barely ever above our heads and never behind ourselves which is what turn us inwardly rotated in several ways. My gander is that when you lifted your arms straight up they were pointed slightly forward still OR that you had to arch your back to make the hands go straight up. If you don't agree with me, lie down with your belly on the ground and lift your hands above your head as you did standing up and don't let the hands touch the ground. is this is not a problem at all for you? in that case you'll probably have the opposite problem. yes i'm that cynical.

You see when you can't move arms properly above yourself that means your shoulder press would benefit greatly from fixing this as well as your posture in the squat and the movement of your elbows in the pulldown.If you don't fix this you'll be constantly fighting against yourself to perform a movement when you COULD have all your power doing what you want, instead of fighting yourself.

This goes for all the joints in your body, and this is why we want symmetry. Too much of one thing OFTEN leads to problems with the opposite.

One must also differ between having a short/tight muscle and a strong muscle. A muscle can be STRETCHED or TIGHT (long or short) as well as at the same time being STRONG or WEAK. It can be strong and stretched or tight and weak, therefore the optimal would be to have a strong and optimally stretched muscle.

Optimal movement = Optimal strength

If you don't have it you'll fight yourself for technique and strength gains and in the end it can lead to injuries. If you have issues right now reading this you can probably google it and come to a conclusion faster than I can list all of them and give you the correct "intrawebs diagnosis".

Shoulder dislocation (sounds fun right)You can mute this and read what I'm saying:

This is what I want you to do to increase the flexibility in your general shoulder area. Your arms should remain straight through-out the movement and if you can't move all the way back while gripping a broom at the very far ends then you will just have to work as far as you can until you're able to get there.

pec stretch:

Do like the guy does, move forward with your foot that's closest to the side you're stretching and keep a good posture while doing it. You'll feel this in your tits and to some extent your shoulder.

Hamstring stretch:

Yes, your knees are allowed to bend - your back however isn't. Keep a straight back and move your belly towards your leg. If you straighten out your leg you'll probably feel it in the calves too.

You can also lie down by a doorway and put your one foot up along the wall, like this:

Hip flexor stretch

Push your ass into it, you want to do the opposite of the angle that your hip has got when sitting down. if you let your ass point outwards you've got some work to do.Your ass will be active in making this stretch work to your benefit.

this is the same thing, you've seen it before:

now you know how why he's so fucking agile.

BUT FOAM ROLLING?

read up on it and do it, i'm not gonna cover it right now

BUT THIS AND THAT

stretching is bad for you, milk is bad for you, drinking too much water is bad for you, running is bad for you, drinking too little water is bad for you, not enough social acitivities is bad for you, partying all the time is bad for you, weightlifting is bad for you, not weightlifting is bad for you.

if there's something you don't agree with lay it out with accompanying evidence as to WHY it is bad and to what extent and I will discuss with you until we come to a conclusion and then I'll post that conclusion here!

I will review all of this later on but right now I'm tired of writing. If you have any questions ask them in this thread so that I can refer you to reading all this shit you just skipped and we can both feel productive and social!

GOOD LUCK and remember, you're not lifting something up from the earth, you're pushing the earth away to make way for your gains. over and over again.

Last edited by vidret on Thu May 09, 2013 9:31 am, edited 2 times in total.

Thanks man! I got into working out about 8 months ago - but have been really slacking since the wife got pregnant (we would always go to the gym together). That combined with the fact that I will have precious little time away from from work or home after the little one arrives means I really need to sort out a routine I can do with a pull up bar and some free weights at home. This will help immensely

This is great dude, thank you. I weigh 130 and im about 6 feet tall and Im mostly interested in strength. If i gain a lil muscle/more definition im cool but really I want to be way stronger all around, it seems my back and shoulders and boobies are my weak points right now. When im doing work over my head my shoulders get tired quick. My jobs real physical so im much stronger than I look but I want some more stamina/strength regardless. ( POWER AND CONFIDENCE)

As far as food, I may have a gluten intolerance, so ive cut that out of my diet this week to see if that helps, but im basically tired and shitty ALL THE TIME. Hence why I never really worked out. Im looking forward to goin over this thread a few times and being a viking.

i'm glad you said you were the one with the beard because i'd naturally assume you'd post a naked pic of your friend

I can't judge stuff like that though, i judge strength off of stats or if we're talking about muscle balance i'd need to see your posture and have you test some movements.Gluten intolerance isn't really a problem afaik when it comes to most of this, there's not a lot of stuff that contains gluten that i'd actively tell you to try to eat as much as possible of.

What I CAN say is that it looks like you have a good plateau to work off of and just gain muscle without needing to shred any fat, so a clean bulk will do you well. you'll look super within a year bro

The Wood Wizard wrote:This is great dude, thank you. I weigh 130 and im about 6 feet tall and Im mostly interested in strength. If i gain a lil muscle/more definition im cool but really I want to be way stronger all around, it seems my back and shoulders and boobies are my weak points right now. When im doing work over my head my shoulders get tired quick. My jobs real physical so im much stronger than I look but I want some more stamina/strength regardless. ( POWER AND CONFIDENCE)

As far as food, I may have a gluten intolerance, so ive cut that out of my diet this week to see if that helps, but im basically tired and shitty ALL THE TIME. Hence why I never really worked out. Im looking forward to goin over this thread a few times and being a viking.

I was tested for intolerances by a Chinese herbal clinic. They took a sample of my hair and sent it off to the UK for testing. The results came back stating I was intolerant, possibly allergic, to gluten, pollen, dust, animal dander, alcohol, and a couple of other things. So I cut out gluten as best I could for three months. No improvement. I'm back on wheat now as it's such a difficult to diet to maintain and I noticed no increase in energy or a decrease in allergic reactions. It wasn't worth it. I was trying to lose weight by eating healthier, then I suddenly found out I couldn't eat pasta and bread. I had heard this would eliminate easy to cook food, such as pasta and sandwiches, but it didn't help me cut back. It just depressed me.

The Wood Wizard wrote:This is great dude, thank you. I weigh 130 and im about 6 feet tall and Im mostly interested in strength. If i gain a lil muscle/more definition im cool but really I want to be way stronger all around, it seems my back and shoulders and boobies are my weak points right now. When im doing work over my head my shoulders get tired quick. My jobs real physical so im much stronger than I look but I want some more stamina/strength regardless. ( POWER AND CONFIDENCE)

As far as food, I may have a gluten intolerance, so ive cut that out of my diet this week to see if that helps, but im basically tired and shitty ALL THE TIME. Hence why I never really worked out. Im looking forward to goin over this thread a few times and being a viking.

I was tested for intolerances by a Chinese herbal clinic. They took a sample of my hair and sent it off to the UK for testing. The results came back stating I was intolerant, possibly allergic, to gluten, pollen, dust, animal dander, alcohol, and a couple of other things. So I cut out gluten as best I could for three months. No improvement. I'm back on wheat now as it's such a difficult to diet to maintain and I noticed no increase in energy or a decrease in allergic reactions. It wasn't worth it. I was trying to lose weight by eating healthier, then I suddenly found out I couldn't eat pasta and bread. I had heard this would eliminate easy to cook food, such as pasta and sandwiches, but it didn't help me cut back. It just depressed me.

I see no problem avoiding gluten, pollen, dust, animal dander and alcohol in your food at all. alcohol might be boring, pollen is once a year, dust - sure that sucks but keep it clean.

Why would you eat pasta and sandwiches in the first place, really. eat the stuff you would've had WITH the pasta alone and make a sandwich out of the stuff you would've topped that sammy with - DONE.

well sure, I like sammys but it's in no way needed anywhere. If you don't notice the difference I don't see why you should quit though. Word of advice, stay away from additional carbs in food such as rice, pasta, potatoes all that stuff. you don't really need it if you're trying to lose weight. it's nothing super-wrong with it, you just probably don't need it.